I receive, each day, quite a few emails with case studies of business which have gained online success. This is the first volume of a series focusing on the challenges and rewards of running an online business today. In it online entrepreneurs, people like you and me who started with an idea, passion and time, detail some of the steps which helped them become successful online. Their experiences become part of the learning patterns we use to maintain the focus on what we need to do in order to succeed.
Jimmy Kouniakis launched a website to promote his foreign language school. The website proved so effective that he opened a second one within sixteen months of the website’s launch and now has plans for further expansion and development.
What is your website?
What was your inspiration?
I have been involved in ELT all my life. Although we are a local business a lot of our target audience, these days, use the web for research and for us it was a natural step towards expanding our marketing at a relatively low cost and greater long-term impact. I read an article not long after launch which said that the web, though global, is really local and that made me more determined than ever to use online marketing as a primary focus.
What is your biggest achievement?
We have a Google first page position in the Google.gr Index for ‘Burlington English’. This is an online language teaching method where you can progress at your own rate. We are on the first page of Google even though for us it is a peripheral and developing interest and has very little space on our website. The very top slot is that of the company which actually produces the language course package so I am definitely very proud of that.
What is your biggest challenge?
WE are operating in a very tough market with depressed profit margins and many challenges. The greatest issue we have to face is managing cash-flow throughout the year. English language teaching is still a seasonal business with peaks and troughs through the year. My aim is to iron these out so that eventually the business has a more even flow of customers and more facets to it than just the language class teaching.
What resources or tools have you found most useful?
Our website, obviously, without it the business would never have grown and opened a second school. Our page on Facebook is invaluable in maintaining social interaction.
What was your biggest mistake?
Taking so long to learn about the business before I was in a position to make it grow. It’s been a ten year run already and I think if I had focused a little more I could have achieved a lot more in less time.
If you were to start all over again what would you do differently?
I would start the language school with the website at the same time. It took me a long time to be convinced I needed one and then even longer to learn to use it properly. I would integrate my marketing a lot better to work online and offline. The disconnect there cost me a lot of time and money.
What's next?
I am planning a third language school for next year, though at the moment this is still on the drawing board and there is a new website being launched to push the Burlington English Language Course to audiences in other countries.
This is a major investment and we shall see how it goes.
Alisa Miller. Former lingerie and swimsuit model. Writer, blogger and online entrepreneur tells us what made her take the path she did and start a website to promote her books and some of the challenges she faced along the way.
What is your website?
What was your inspiration?
I had just come out of a career in modelling and needed to find something for me to do. Writing was a natural path for me to take. I was working on a book at the time and needed to take a break between writing and research and the idea of blogging appealed. Plus I needed a place where I could have a presence on the web.
I was lucky in that I found a web design team which could really understand what I wanted and could also make suggestions of their own. It all came together very fast and very fluidly and the result is something I am really happy with.
What is your biggest achievement?
When ‘Understanding Her’ first came out it went to Amazon’s top 50 within a week and stayed there for two months. Much of the publicity was driven by my blog and my Facebook presence and I felt that I was directly involved in the entire thing, driving everything forward. That certainly felt good, though, I must say that at the time it took a year of my life.
Getting my blog to the top of search engines was also something which I felt was driven directly by my writing. I became an SEO expert in a really short time simply absorbing everything that I could and reading up on as much as possible. It made me feel empowered to know that I had the knowledge and skill to influence how my website appeared on search engines. For a very long time it drove my writing and the way I thought up articles and topics to blog about.
What is your biggest challenge?
I am now at a stage where my blog and career need a slightly new direction. I have reached the stage where I get several thousand unique visitors each month but I know that in order for my blog to grow I need to define a new approach. I am still working on that and it will definitely be my biggest challenge this year.
What resources or tools have you found most useful?
My site is based on the Joomla CMS. I love its functionality and it has been configured by my developers in a way which allows me to run it completely. I only need to go back to them if I need any programming updates or need to re-design the layout which is beyond my abilities to control, or even attempt. Much of my SEO and social networking promotional routine revolves around what I picked up from your books and which then I adapted to the specific way I work.
In promoting my work I have found two tools to be extremely useful: the link ups between my social network accounts so I do not have to spend a lot of time doing boring online posting work. I can from just one of them, post to all the others. It maximises my time and increases the impact of everything I put on the web.
What was your biggest mistake?
Getting banned from Facebook. I am still not 100% sure how I caused it but I went from a fan page that had over 30,000 fans to zero practically overnight. It put a big hole in my online marketing and also destroyed, in one move, over a year’s work in getting there. On the plus side it freed up some time for me to actually sit down and think what I really wanted to do with my life. This I found invaluable and it helped me clarify many thoughts and ideas which the pressure of maintaining an active online presence definitely didn’t.
If you were to start all over again what would you do differently?
I would start with SEO first, definitely. It took me some time to actually understand what I needed in order to be able to guide my developers and also work on my writing in a way which really benefited my online presence. That and less time spent on book interviews. My books got more sales from my blog’s presence and my Facebook activities than through any single magazine interview which required more travelling time, preparation and effort. If I was starting from the beginning I would run everything online or via email – it would give me months of extra time.
What's next?
That’s the million dollar question for me. I am working on a new book on fitness and lifestyle for the modern woman (and man). I am trying to make it more realistic than anything we are exposed to today. That and more writing on my blog. I am about to start a life balance series. Stay tuned.
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